‘Clarifier’ cuts time of sugar refining

The Sterling Sugars mill, built in 1807, holds inside a revolutionary piece of equipment designed at LSU and custom built by Crompion International. Sugar industry leaders from Brazil, Mexico, China, India and Cuba are making trips to view it in action.
(Photo:
Lynda Edwards, The Daily Advertiser
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FRANKLIN – Trucks loaded with cane stalks rumbled through the bitter cold Monday toward the Sterling Sugars Inc. mill. Louisiana farmers scrambled to get their final harvest from the fields and through the refinery before this week’s deep freeze destroys them.

The process itself is much faster at Sterling because of a revolutionary piece of equipment — the Crompion Louisiana Low Turbulence Clarifier.

The new clarifier was designed by the Louisiana State University AgCenter’s Audubon Sugar Institute and custom-built by Baton Rouge-based Crompion International, a producer of equipment for the sugar and oil industries. Sure, it just looks like a big tank from the outside. But teams of sugar industrialists from India, Mexico, Pakistan, Brazil and China have either made pilgrimages to Franklin or are planning trips to see the clarifier in action.

The Cubans wistfully told Crompion International sales Vice President Angel Paul Proano they are eager to see it “even though we can’t sell them one due to the trade embargo,” he said.

Sterling mill manager Luis Acevedo explained that the clarifier dramatically decreases the time needed to separate the sugar from soil and other contaminants. It also uses a device called a flash trough that keeps the cane juice clear of turbidity.

“We’ve been running the plant 24/7, working in shifts now at the end of crushing season,” Acevedo said. “All of this sugar, everything you see here, will be shipped off to Domino.”

The barges were waiting outside to be loaded with sugar before they will be shoved into Bayou Teche, then into the Mississippi River.

The clarifier was installed in Sterling about two years ago, and two other Louisiana plants are using it. Crompion CEO George Schaffer said that LSU could share in the profits if the LLT becomes profitable. He said he feels comfortable pitching the product to a global audience.

“My father worked in a sugar refinery in the Sudan, so I spent part of my childhood there,” Shaffer said.

Audubon Sugar Institute Director Benjamin Legendre said recent health concerns expressed about Americans gulping down too much sugar have not dented demand, not globally and not nationally.

“My finacée is a nutritionist, so we discuss this quite a bit,” he said. “It seems that in countries with a growing middle class, like India and China, as consumers become more affluent, they develop a palate that craves sweeter tastes.”

China and India are the American sugar industry’s next big sales frontiers, according to a December U.S. Commerce Department report.